


steve makes a decision (that changes the universe)

by super_fast_jelly_fish



Series: infinite, endless possibilities [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: (brian david gilbert voice) the TIME BREAK, @endgame yo what the FUCK was that, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bisexual Steve Rogers, FUCK, Fix-It, How Do I Tag, Multi, Not Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, Not Canon Compliant, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, SO, So many tags, Steve Rogers Feels, as per usual smh, enjoy i guess, it was good i just, justice for bucky, take that russos, this is just a mess of me being self indulgent, what even was cap's characterization
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-02
Updated: 2019-05-02
Packaged: 2020-02-10 16:38:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18664234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/super_fast_jelly_fish/pseuds/super_fast_jelly_fish
Summary: After Steve does That One Fucking Thing, he ends up massively screwing the metaphorical pooch that is time (aka a precious thread in the fabric of the universe) and from there, only more and more timelines seem to emerge. This is a look at some of them, starting with probably the most important one.





	steve makes a decision (that changes the universe)

**Author's Note:**

> look at the tags folks. i'm gay and in distress, so here we are. i crawled out of my anxiety hobbit hole to write this pls enjoy  
> inspired by deliciouslymarvel's tumblr post! someone pls let them know that theyre super inspirational and great, i would but as of yet i dont have a tumblr with which to do so

_“Don’t do anything stupid until I get back.”_

_“How can I? You’re taking all the stupid with you.”_

Bucky’s right, Steve knows. He is the stupid one. He’s the one who picked fights in alleyways knowing that he’d lose, that he’d always lose, and wanting to keep it up anyway. He’s the one who volunteered for an experimental body modification that could have just as easily killed him as it did send him into the war. He’s the one who nosedived a plane into the ocean in an attempt to sacrifice himself and somehow managed to stay living, like a red-white-and-blue cockroach. He’s the one that picked up the shield, and refused to put it down. Not for long.

_“I can do this all day.”_

_“I know.”_

Talking to the Steve of so few years ago (though they somehow felt eternal compared to his time in the ice) had been a jarring experience, to say the least. Roughly a decade has been unkinder to him than seventy years in nature’s frigidaire. 2012 him had been so determined, so fiery, a shiny new toy for SHIELD to play with to their hearts’ content. That was what he was to them then, wasn’t it? A toy. A marionette or an action figure that played out the storylines they thought out perfectly. Steve has all but forgotten what it felt to be like that, so unwaveringly driven to stop every evil in the world.

He is different now. Weathered. Worn down. His body may have been enhanced by Erskine’s serum, but his mind is the same as before. He was lucky to have a sharp edge to his brain for every imperfection in his body. But, he supposes, in that way he was the perfect candidate for the Super Soldier Program.

He is different now because he knows he should be choosing hs battles. It just so happens that he chooses most of them. He’s older now. Not just legally. For all Tony teased him of being a grandpa when he was fresh out of the ice, Steve still had felt young then. He had been a soldier home from the war, only to be catapulted into the future to fight another one.

Now he really feels old, watching his friends die left and right like Bucky’s grandmother used to complain about. Steve has seen his fair share of death in his life, going from the service in the forties to a full-time job as an Avenger now. It’s only recently that he’s realized. He wants it to stop. He’s had enough. He wants to have a home to come to, a place to hang his coat when he walks into it, and a useless hobby to occupy himself with after that. Natasha had wanted to take up crocheting, before… all of this. He thinks he still has a blue tea cozy she made him for Christmas somewhere in the back of Bucky’s cabinets in Wakanda.

_“But I can get by on my own.”_

_“The thing is, you don’t have to.”_

They never should have trusted him, the man from the past who they all are very aware has trouble moving on, with time travel. He will do something stupid with it. It’s in his nature. The scrawny kid from Brooklyn who couldn’t let a taunt go, couldn’t let people go, either. He’s lost so many over the years. Too many. Pa. Ma. Bucky. Peggy. Bucky again. Tony. Nat.

He knows he has to be grateful for what he has. He has to cling onto those he loves before the world finds a way to rip them apart from him. And when he has a chance to get one of them back, he takes it.

Steve’s a veteran of time travel at this point. At least this time around he’s aware that he’s doing it. He’s gotten better at adapting to the abrupt changes it brings.

Bucky offered to come with him. His best friend. The one he lost twice yet somehow managed to find again. Steve wouldn’t let him come along. He isn’t going to lose him another time, not when there’s no guarantee of return.

Besides, he needs to do this alone. He doesn’t want to risk running short on Pym Particles, or being caught, or being killed. Also, he needs to do something important before he returns to the present permanently.

_“You sure you’re alright?”_

_“Yeah, it’s just… I had a date.”_

There are nights when Steve can’t sleep. Most nights, Steve can’t sleep. His system is too efficient for him to truly need a full night’s rest to function properly. It doesn’t get easier when certain noises still make him jump and he can’t be anywhere cold for long without a dreadful feeling creeping down his back. He can’t even garden anymore, a pastime that used to keep him busy and provide spices for all of Bucky’s concoctions he called dinner. Now, every time he feels the dirt between his fingers he thinks of _dust_ and _the vanishing_ and a helpless voice asking, _“Steve?”_

When he can’t get his eyes to close without feeling the push of freezing water against his chest, Steve turns his thoughts to people he loves and still has with him. He used to think about Ma and Bucky. Then he thought about Sam, Nat, and Tony. These days it’s mostly Bucky.

Sometimes, though, he can’t stop his mind from wandering to the people he’s lost. That list seems to grow longer by the day. However, there is one in particular who haunts him not for what they had but what they _could have_ had.

Steve spends months returning the infinity stones to their original homes, and then he goes a few years back to a dance hall in New York.

It’s risky, he knows. There’s another him out there somewhere, only very recently plunged into the icy seas. He’s extremely recognizable, and extremely supposed to be dead.

But Peggy is standing outside the hall, staring down at the street and clutching at her handbag tensely. She looks so unassuming for a woman who could probably kill the super soldier himself.

They only have a week and change together to work off of. Steve knows that building a relationship with her would be difficult. That doesn’t change the fact that he has nightmares about her smirking red lips and chocolate eyes the same way he does about the war, and the ice.

She cries when she sees him. She holds him, and cradles his face, and smiles. Steve can’t stop the tears that flow from his own eyes in return. He’s missed her. He’s missed her so much.

They walk into the hall together, and they dance.

_“The world has changed, and none of us can go back. All we can do is our best, and sometimes, the best that we can do, is to start over.”_

Peggy knows that he’s not her Steve. She calls him tired. He tells her there was traffic on the way to their date. She laughs.

Steve still has two left feet, despite Natasha’s best efforts to teach him basic waltzing. They spin in slow circles around a crowded dance hall, and there’s a moment where Steve half-considers pulling her in for a kiss.

In that moment, the light catches her eye and turns it golden, and he thinks of how the Peggy of 2014 had those same eyes, so bright and full of life, after all that time. He thinks of how she told him stories of her days at SHIELD, and how she proudly showed him photos of her children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren. He thinks of how she had an incredibly full and happy life, one that he had the ability to ruin on the simplest whim.

“You can’t stay here.” Peggy says sadly. She always understands more than is good for her. It’s one of the reasons Steve likes her so much.

“I know.” Steve replies heavily, and he does. He knows.

_“I’m with you till the end of the line, pal.”_

Steve bids Peggy goodbye after the hall closes and they’re forced out. If he stays any longer, he’ll risk… something. Whether it be for the good of the world or only him, he understands that the longer he remains the harder it will be to leave.

He keeps her picture, as a reminder. Not a burden to burn a hole in his pocket, but a talisman to ground him. It’s a reminder not of opportunities missed, but of loved ones who never truly leave.

Steve Rogers travels back to the present, not the future, but the _present,_ at last feeling entirely ready to live.

(Sam later claims that he was only _mildly_ fazed to witness his friend come barreling out of the time machine, plant a passionate kiss on his other-half of around a century, and unceremoniously pass on the shield and the mantle of Captain America to Sam himself in a matter of minutes. Then again, it takes a lot to shake Sam Wilson.)

**Author's Note:**

> i eat comments pls feed me i'm starving  
> just now realizing how hard i went on steve having ptsd over the ice thing but if i were him i would be fully traumatized, so  
> this will be part 1 of a series where i get emo about endgame and give all my favorites the happy ending they deserve goddammit


End file.
